What Happened? Understanding Brain Injury
April 17, 2015
What Happened?
Well, I sure as heck don¹t remember it. All of my knowledge rests on
what witnesses said. It was just a little over a mile from my house on
December 17, 2013. That means it was also just a tenth of a mile from my
sister¹s house. That turned out to be a stroke of luck for me. As I
went past her house, she was just pulling out of the driveway and thought
to herself ³That looks like David going by.²
Well, just a little further down the road, there was a car sitting dead
still signaling their desire to make a left turn and obviously waiting
for me to pass. There was also someone else pulling up behind that car
and also desiring to make a left turn into a driveway about 25 feet
closer than the drive for which the first car was sitting dead still. It
never occurred to the driver of the second car that there was a reason
for the first driver to be sitting and waiting.
The second driver went ahead and executed his left turn. The cops
measured the skid marks left by my Gold Wing at just 22 feet. I figure I
was going very close to the posted speed limit of 35 because that stretch
of road was well known to have police cars with radar units watching for
speeders. I was probably still doing around 30 when I struck the SUV
that turned in front of me. The impact threw me out of the boot I was
using to apply the brake. I¹m very glad I was wearing a high quality
helmet (Shoei) because my head struck the hardest part of the SUV (the
roof line over the passenger door) and that is where my story really
starts.
My brain continued traveling inside my head and slammed into the interior
wall of my skull. Something punched a hole about an inch around and at
least an inch deep in my right thigh. Got lucky there because it barely
missed the femoral artery. As I lay there, my luck actually changed. My
sister pulled up about 15 seconds after it happened and thought, ³I
wonder if David managed to get past here.² Well, I didn¹t. She is
trained as a Red Cross First Responder and immediately took action, when
she realized it was me. With people hollering at her not to touch me,
she straightened my airway and managed to restore my breathing somewhat.
She also called 911 and insisted that they send a helicopter and not a
standard ambulance. She then called my wife and let her know to get
there right away. The wife got there about the same time as the
helicopter and they told her to go straight to the hospital. It¹s only
about 20 minutes from the site of the accident but the chopper beat her
there and had me unloaded and in the ER before she got there.
I quit breathing at least once before getting to the ER, but good EMTs
and the attention of my sister made that a bit of a non-issue. At the ER
they decided that I had a broken leg (which they didn¹t even bother to
splint or treat since I wasn¹t moving) at least three cracked ribs and a
brain hemorrhage. While in the ICU (in a coma for several weeks), I had
a saddle embolism. They said I likely would have died if I wasn¹t
already in the hospital being watched for just such a problem. I already
had a history of embolisms due to DVTs in one leg. Lucky me. They had a
surgeon install a filter in me to prevent clots from getting that far in
the future. I also had a case of pneumonia caused by inhaling stuff I
should have been swallowing. My wife says listening to me trying to
breathe at that time was one of the worst periods in her life. They
sucked the fluids out of my lungs and eventually removed the breathing
tube for the first time in a little over two weeks. Of course, this is
all something else I was told about and for which I have no memory.
So, a little over three weeks after the wreck (I refuse to call it an
accident since the driver of the other vehicle could have avoided his
actions) I was transferred by ambulance to a hospital a little over 70
miles away that has a well-known brain injury ward. Also don¹t remember
that. I do remember insulting the nurses at that hospital and accusing
them of keeping me sick as a way of insuring job security. I was joking
but they didn¹t know that at the time. After I was there for about three
weeks one nurse told me ³I¹ve decided that you¹re a funny guy and it¹s
not the brain damage making you say the things you do.² I smiled and
almost choked on that one.
A month at the Brain Injury ward and they gave me permission to go to the
bathroom without a nurse watching. I still had to ask for permission and
they still liked to have a nurse in my room any time I got up to go, but
it was still a matter of celebration for me. It¹s funny the things that
we decide are worth celebrating. Things like being able to use a walker
to go to the bathroom and not a wheel chair. And finally, being able to
walk the 15 feet to the BR without a walker. I have to admit that having
the walker was a feeling of safety that I didn¹t usually give up, but it
was good to know it wasn¹t required.
Finally about 2.5 months after the wreck, HOME. I said goodbye to all
the nurses and PT folks that made it possible and got wheeled down to the
car. Let me tell you about that 70 mile ride home. It was horrifying.
I was suffering greatly from double vision. I¹m talking about the funny
stuff in movies where you see two people or two cars coming at you and
you have no way of knowing which is the real car. I kept closing one eye
so as to see only one car. The other thing I hadn¹t really considered
was that it had been more than two months since I could remember
traveling faster than a wheel chair. The ride home was quite the thrill.
After I got home there were many adjustments to be made. I could only
shower because sitting in a tub and being able to get back up was out of
the question. It only took making the attempt once in a dry tub to show
me that. Luckily, my shower was built with a seat for my wife to shave
her legs and that works great for taking a shower without standing up.
Using newly installed hand rails to get back up off the toilet was
another one. New ways of getting out of bed without falling down. A
different chair for watching TV and that is a lot easier to fall into and
climb out of. Life was just full of surprises.
Then, of course, PBA. I¹ve only recently seen ads on TV about that and I
know I would have chuckled over it before the wreck because I would not
have understood. Pseudo Bulbar AffectŠ if you don¹t know, it causes you
to find yourself laughing or, in my case, crying uncontrollably at the
silliest of causes. I found myself crying when I talked about never
being able to ride a motorcycle again, having problems relearning
ballroom dance, watching a sad moment in a TV show. Thank the Lord for
Neudexta. Use of this drug allows me to get through the day with no
uncontrollable episodes. When I felt the crying coming on, I would warn
my friends that it was about to happen and it was okay for them to help
laugh me out of it. I can only imagine how it would have affected
someone who was unable to laugh at themselves. Anyone reading this
should know that I would never laugh at them about this condition or any
of the problems associated with brain injuries; but I was, and am, able
to laugh at myself about just about anything. I firmly believe that the
best recovery possible from a TBI involves quite a bit of humor.
Here I am over a year later. I still have a multitude of problems. My
memory is not as good as before. My sense of balance sucks. I can¹t
remember a tenth of the dance moves that I knew before the wreck and my
feet feel like I¹m wearing ten pounds of lead booties on them. Maybe not
important to most of you but, if you¹re a ballroom dancer with more than
10 years of experience; you can imagine how I feel. I have a very
flighty temper now and it was always very tightly controlled. My
handwriting and printing are very sloppy and my printing was usual cause
for strangers to ask me if I was an engineer. In crowds, I find that my
world starts to tilt and rock. My feet and arms have burning and
freezing sensations running through them all the time. I start to wonder
if it will ever get much better and it is sometimes hard to remain
positive. But crying about your troubles never did anyone good.
I hope that writing this down will help someone to know that their
circumstances are not unique. We are not alone and; no matter how bad
things look, someone else has it a lot worse. Life is good.
Well, I sure as heck don¹t remember it. All of my knowledge rests on
what witnesses said. It was just a little over a mile from my house on
December 17, 2013. That means it was also just a tenth of a mile from my
sister¹s house. That turned out to be a stroke of luck for me. As I
went past her house, she was just pulling out of the driveway and thought
to herself ³That looks like David going by.²
Well, just a little further down the road, there was a car sitting dead
still signaling their desire to make a left turn and obviously waiting
for me to pass. There was also someone else pulling up behind that car
and also desiring to make a left turn into a driveway about 25 feet
closer than the drive for which the first car was sitting dead still. It
never occurred to the driver of the second car that there was a reason
for the first driver to be sitting and waiting.
The second driver went ahead and executed his left turn. The cops
measured the skid marks left by my Gold Wing at just 22 feet. I figure I
was going very close to the posted speed limit of 35 because that stretch
of road was well known to have police cars with radar units watching for
speeders. I was probably still doing around 30 when I struck the SUV
that turned in front of me. The impact threw me out of the boot I was
using to apply the brake. I¹m very glad I was wearing a high quality
helmet (Shoei) because my head struck the hardest part of the SUV (the
roof line over the passenger door) and that is where my story really
starts.
My brain continued traveling inside my head and slammed into the interior
wall of my skull. Something punched a hole about an inch around and at
least an inch deep in my right thigh. Got lucky there because it barely
missed the femoral artery. As I lay there, my luck actually changed. My
sister pulled up about 15 seconds after it happened and thought, ³I
wonder if David managed to get past here.² Well, I didn¹t. She is
trained as a Red Cross First Responder and immediately took action, when
she realized it was me. With people hollering at her not to touch me,
she straightened my airway and managed to restore my breathing somewhat.
She also called 911 and insisted that they send a helicopter and not a
standard ambulance. She then called my wife and let her know to get
there right away. The wife got there about the same time as the
helicopter and they told her to go straight to the hospital. It¹s only
about 20 minutes from the site of the accident but the chopper beat her
there and had me unloaded and in the ER before she got there.
I quit breathing at least once before getting to the ER, but good EMTs
and the attention of my sister made that a bit of a non-issue. At the ER
they decided that I had a broken leg (which they didn¹t even bother to
splint or treat since I wasn¹t moving) at least three cracked ribs and a
brain hemorrhage. While in the ICU (in a coma for several weeks), I had
a saddle embolism. They said I likely would have died if I wasn¹t
already in the hospital being watched for just such a problem. I already
had a history of embolisms due to DVTs in one leg. Lucky me. They had a
surgeon install a filter in me to prevent clots from getting that far in
the future. I also had a case of pneumonia caused by inhaling stuff I
should have been swallowing. My wife says listening to me trying to
breathe at that time was one of the worst periods in her life. They
sucked the fluids out of my lungs and eventually removed the breathing
tube for the first time in a little over two weeks. Of course, this is
all something else I was told about and for which I have no memory.
So, a little over three weeks after the wreck (I refuse to call it an
accident since the driver of the other vehicle could have avoided his
actions) I was transferred by ambulance to a hospital a little over 70
miles away that has a well-known brain injury ward. Also don¹t remember
that. I do remember insulting the nurses at that hospital and accusing
them of keeping me sick as a way of insuring job security. I was joking
but they didn¹t know that at the time. After I was there for about three
weeks one nurse told me ³I¹ve decided that you¹re a funny guy and it¹s
not the brain damage making you say the things you do.² I smiled and
almost choked on that one.
A month at the Brain Injury ward and they gave me permission to go to the
bathroom without a nurse watching. I still had to ask for permission and
they still liked to have a nurse in my room any time I got up to go, but
it was still a matter of celebration for me. It¹s funny the things that
we decide are worth celebrating. Things like being able to use a walker
to go to the bathroom and not a wheel chair. And finally, being able to
walk the 15 feet to the BR without a walker. I have to admit that having
the walker was a feeling of safety that I didn¹t usually give up, but it
was good to know it wasn¹t required.
Finally about 2.5 months after the wreck, HOME. I said goodbye to all
the nurses and PT folks that made it possible and got wheeled down to the
car. Let me tell you about that 70 mile ride home. It was horrifying.
I was suffering greatly from double vision. I¹m talking about the funny
stuff in movies where you see two people or two cars coming at you and
you have no way of knowing which is the real car. I kept closing one eye
so as to see only one car. The other thing I hadn¹t really considered
was that it had been more than two months since I could remember
traveling faster than a wheel chair. The ride home was quite the thrill.
After I got home there were many adjustments to be made. I could only
shower because sitting in a tub and being able to get back up was out of
the question. It only took making the attempt once in a dry tub to show
me that. Luckily, my shower was built with a seat for my wife to shave
her legs and that works great for taking a shower without standing up.
Using newly installed hand rails to get back up off the toilet was
another one. New ways of getting out of bed without falling down. A
different chair for watching TV and that is a lot easier to fall into and
climb out of. Life was just full of surprises.
Then, of course, PBA. I¹ve only recently seen ads on TV about that and I
know I would have chuckled over it before the wreck because I would not
have understood. Pseudo Bulbar AffectŠ if you don¹t know, it causes you
to find yourself laughing or, in my case, crying uncontrollably at the
silliest of causes. I found myself crying when I talked about never
being able to ride a motorcycle again, having problems relearning
ballroom dance, watching a sad moment in a TV show. Thank the Lord for
Neudexta. Use of this drug allows me to get through the day with no
uncontrollable episodes. When I felt the crying coming on, I would warn
my friends that it was about to happen and it was okay for them to help
laugh me out of it. I can only imagine how it would have affected
someone who was unable to laugh at themselves. Anyone reading this
should know that I would never laugh at them about this condition or any
of the problems associated with brain injuries; but I was, and am, able
to laugh at myself about just about anything. I firmly believe that the
best recovery possible from a TBI involves quite a bit of humor.
Here I am over a year later. I still have a multitude of problems. My
memory is not as good as before. My sense of balance sucks. I can¹t
remember a tenth of the dance moves that I knew before the wreck and my
feet feel like I¹m wearing ten pounds of lead booties on them. Maybe not
important to most of you but, if you¹re a ballroom dancer with more than
10 years of experience; you can imagine how I feel. I have a very
flighty temper now and it was always very tightly controlled. My
handwriting and printing are very sloppy and my printing was usual cause
for strangers to ask me if I was an engineer. In crowds, I find that my
world starts to tilt and rock. My feet and arms have burning and
freezing sensations running through them all the time. I start to wonder
if it will ever get much better and it is sometimes hard to remain
positive. But crying about your troubles never did anyone good.
I hope that writing this down will help someone to know that their
circumstances are not unique. We are not alone and; no matter how bad
things look, someone else has it a lot worse. Life is good.